Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown acknowledged yesterday that he was late paying an $892
property-tax bill for the second half of 2011 on an apartment that he has owned in Washington for
two decades.

Brown, D-Ohio, who stays in the apartment when the Senate is in session, told reporters on a
conference call that he had “misplaced the bill” in the apartment, and he “paid a penalty for being
late. And it won’t happen again.”

Meghan Dubyak, a Brown spokeswoman, said the senator paid the tax on Feb. 8. That same day, a
Dispatch reporter called Brown’s office to ask whether he was late on his property
taxes.

“I know as soon as I found out, I paid the bill,” Brown said.

According to District of Columbia tax records, it was the second time in six years that Brown
was late in paying property taxes on the apartment. In 2006, he was assessed $459.89 in penalties
and late fees for his property tax of $1,699.64.

In early 2007, according to district records, the property had been placed on an auction list
because Brown was late on the taxes. Once he paid the bill, the apartment was taken off the
list.

Brown, who was elected to the Senate in 2006, said yesterday that he also had misplaced the 2006
bills.

District records show that Brown paid on time his property tax of $824.04 for the first half of
2011. For the second half, the district government charged him $922.04 for his property tax, but
because of past total credits, the bill was reduced to $892.74.

Brown paid the bill, plus a $76.96 penalty and $46.18 in interest. It appears that he was about
four months late in paying.

From 2007 through the first half of 2011, Brown paid $8,092 in property taxes on time. The
400-square-foot apartment is valued at $222,280. Brown told
The Dispatch last fall that he originally paid about $60,000 for the apartment.

In addition, Brown and his wife own a home in Avon Lake, Ohio, and rent an apartment in
Columbus.

Chris Maloney, a spokesman for the Ohio GOP, said in a statement: “It’s shameful that Sherrod
Brown is intent on increasing taxes upon small-business owners and families in Ohio while he evades
them in Washington.”

Meanwhile, the Ohio Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission
yesterday alleging that Brown’s likely Republican opponent in the fall, state Treasurer Josh
Mandel, illegally used money from his state-candidate fund to pay for activities related to his run
for the U.S. Senate.

Mandel, the Ohio GOP-endorsed candidate, “appears to have paid for at least 10 trips” from his
state fund — Citizens for Josh Mandel — for the purpose of gathering support for his Senate bid,
the Democrats say.

The party cites trips that Mandel took to Utah, New York, Washington, D.C., and other
out-of-state destinations, contending that shortly after he returned from the state-campaign-funded
trips, “contributions to Mandel’s federal campaign began pouring in from the same locations.”

The Democrats say that Mandel took many of the trips before he actually became a Senate
candidate and before he filed the necessary paperwork to set up a federal campaign account. Federal
law requires that any Senate-campaign-related spending come from a federal campaign account, not a
state-regulated account.

The Mandel campaign did not comment yesterday, but Mandel previously has said that the trips
included official business and political activity unrelated to a potential Senate campaign.